“WE NEED HELP, NOW!”
A shimmering, sleek silver ship landed right in the middle of the parking area at Savepoint, and as soon as its engines shut off, three Decay Lords stormed out, the smallest being carried by the largest. They were swiftly greeted by Retvik and Vikalos, who had been teleported in front of them by Tah.
“What happened?” Retvik asked as he inspected the three beings.
The middle one was clearly a white and gold Beh’evok, but its crown of horns was much shorter than normal and it lacked arm blades. The tallest one was a colossal heap of walking, silver armour, wearing a matching silver helmet with two curved horns on it, its eyes obscured by a visor, although it did seem to have a tail and a short, snouted face somewhere in that armour. The smallest was a humanoid being with crystalline, almost glass-like skin, with crystal, feather-like protrusions coming out of her arms, a pair of wings on her back and a long tail tipped with more glass feathers and white and black fabric wrapped around her chest, groin, lower legs and odd, beaked face, with only three pairs of glowing eyes visible in the gaps.
“Corruption!” the Beh’en exclaimed. Retvik noticed that it was creating a thin, shimmering shield around itself and the armoured giant, but not around the crystal humanoid. “Corruption we were not vaccinated for! One that will not shift, and is slowly claiming Zephyr!”
Instantly realizing what was going on, Tah jumped up, grabbed onto Zephyr’s tail and teleported her straight into an empty room, where Pah and Gah were already waiting. Also on standby was Elkay, who had gone and grabbed a bottle of his blood. Meanwhile, Vikalos took the two other Decay Lords to one side.
“Don’t worry, dears, we’ll help her. Come with me, and we’ll check you both over, just in case.”
In the emergency room, the three Cleansers had already gotten to work, communicating telepathically. Gah was using his magnetic powers to hold Zephyr down and Pah had already started burning some of the Corruption out of a horrible black mark on Zephyr’s left arm. However, after a few seconds, Pah clicked, loudly and somewhat angrily, and Gah clicked back in a similar fashion.
“What?” Elkay asked, picking up on the Cleansers’ annoyance.
The Cleansers looked at each other then clicked some more. Tah vanished then reappeared with Nuh, Leh and, weirdly, Eksi, and Leh was holding fresh blood donation equipment.
“Eksi, can you please telepathically shut off all of Zephyr’s emotions and feelings, please?” Pah asked.
Eksi blinked, then nodded. “Sure, of course, but why?”
“This purification is going to be very painful…” Pah explained, watching as Tah tied a tourniquet around Zephyr’s upper arm. “Elkay, sorry, but we’re going to need fresh blood right out of your veins.”
“But this litre of my blood is from yesterday?”
“I know, but we need the freshest stuff possible. This Corruption is baaaaaaad. Leh, can you please?”
Elkay sighed and put his arm out, so that Leh could attach the blood donation device. Eksi did as he was told, but he also extended his aura so that Elkay wouldn’t feel any pain as well, and covered his eyes because he knew what the Cleansers were about to do. Eksi also telepathically commanded Zephyr to close her eyes too, then backed off, sheltering behind a plastic shield in the corner.
Satisfied with Eksi’s work, the Cleansers started on their own work. Gah continued to hold Zephyr down, but he also brought Elkay close and held him in place, while Leh inserted a tube into his wrist. However, he then immediately inserted the other end of the tube directly into Zephyr’s arm, right into the wound where the Corruption had gotten in. Leh raised Elkay’s arm up so it was above Zephyr, but Nuh also used his gravity powers to force blood out of Elkay and straight into Zephyr. At the same time, Pah had raised the temperature around the Corruption greatly. Yes, it was burning and melting Zephyr’s perfect crystal skin, but they could fix that later.
All of a sudden, Nuh clicked several times, then ripped a globule of Corruption straight out of the wound. Leh sprayed some of Elkay’s blood from the bottle on the globule, while Gah and Tah created an electromagnetic shield around it. Pah then focused on the globule and disintegrated it, using temperatures hotter than a sun.
Once the globule was dealt with, Nuh took some more of Elkay’s fresh blood and inserted it back into the wound, watching with caution as Elkay’s blood replaced Zephyr’s internal fluids. However, Nuh was also using his gravity powers further, making sure that the foreign blood didn’t go too far. In the mean time, Tah disappeared and swiftly returned with a bottle of Life Goddess blood.
At some point, Elkay wasn’t sure when (he was getting drowsy from the blood loss), Leh removed the tube from Elkay’s arm, then created a vacuum, which sucked all of Elkay’s blood (and a lot of Zephyr’s blood) out of Zephyr’s arm. Once Zephyr’s arm was completely emptied out, Leh and Nuh injected Life Goddess blood into her, which slowly started to heal her popped veins and broken, translucent muscles.
“We good?” Gah asked.
“I think so, yeah…” Pah clicked back. “Sorry about being so forceful, guys, but I’m pretty sure this was the Unending Ancient strain, and it is insanely dangerous…” Pah turned back to Tah. “Can you go back to Retvik and tell him to raise the ambient temperature as much as possible without hurting anyone, then get the other two Ventra Gales to go to the decontamination showers, please?”
“Yeah, sure. Also, Elkay, Eksi, you should come with me. I’ll get Retvik and Vikalos to join us as well.”
Tah took Elkay and Eksi’s hands, then teleported them away. Leh took over monitoring Zephyr, making sure she was healing up properly, while Pah quickly washed both himself and his fellow Cleansers down in a warm, specially controlled plasma. However, they were all rather quiet.
“Isn’t this, like, the third case of the Unending Ancient strain we’ve had lately?” Gah eventually whispered.
Nuh and Pah both nodded. Leh clicked in concern.
“We need to keep an eye out…” Leh eventually sighed. “This Zephyr person got really lucky. An hour later, and they’d be dead. And would have probably killed her friends too. Nuh, Pah, when you get the chance, grab everyone you can, Flames and Telekins, and teach them how to do this as efficiently as we do. We’re going to need as many hands as possible if this gets worse…”